Newsletter of The Old
Thorntonians Association (Clapham)
“Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.” John Ruskin (1819-1900)
No 6
July 2008
Fourth
Reunion
The attached note gives further information on this
year’s event. As requested, please let
Ted Hayward know whether you plan to attend (otherwise no action is needed).
War Memorial Plaque
Further information is given in the reunion notice,
which as in previous years is also being sent to non-member OTs.
Website
At its meeting on 9 May the Management Committee
approved the purchase of additional space, to enable the remaining two films –
1958 (relevant extracts) and 1997, made by Alan Kurtz and Ron Bernstein – to be
added to the site, alongside that taken by Arthur West in c1949. They can now be viewed by clicking on “Films”
on the main menu.
Anyone for Chichester?
With the help of the Hon Secretary of the OC Society
Terry Sharp has arranged the joint OT/OC meeting on Friday 11 July, at the High
School, starting at 10.30am. Terry will
report further at the next reunion.
From Peter Lawson
(1936-41): Further thoughts on
pre-war days: arriving in the morning,
spick and span, walking over the cobble-stone entrance, peering into the
stables where class chums parked their bikes (sixth-former Campbell with his
motorcycle), under the supervision of Fields, one of the school-keepers, in the
delightful, rich atmosphere of horse urine deposited over the man previous
decades. Further on, round the stable
block, past the Portland stone (horse-)mounting block, along the passageway,
through the gate, and thence into South Lodge garden: a central large lawn dominated by an 80ft plane tree on the east
side and a glorious beech at the far end, with a surrounding enclosure of trees
and shrubs. Walking along the paths, on
either side of the lawn, past the fives courts on the west side, past the
Doric-columned “temple” garden shelter, thence, in autumn, with the bonfire
smoke aroma, into the tennis courts, which was a general assembly area for
meetings before descending to the lower terrace for [entry to ] the school.
School
was a busy period, starting with morning assembly, looking up (as juniors) to
the “high” stage, with a beautifully carved, oak lectern on which the selected
prefect read the sermon for the day and the Head – Evans – took Prayers, Songs
of Praise, we referring, where necessary, to our grubby Hymns, A[ncient] &
M[odern],which we carried everywhere, with names written across the exposed
page edges. This was followed by the
Roman Catholic and Jewish boys joining the assembly.
Looking
back, something rubbed off from the King James Bible, of which modern youth has
been deprived, even if we didn’t fully understand the text; the underlying morals, the cadence and
quality English expressed – it still stayed with you. Then we had reports of the House activities and the results of
the Saturday games against the South London schools which were in our league.
Then
to school “proper” along the upper and lower corridors to the class-rooms,
laboratories for Chemistry or Physics, or to the Carpentry workshop, run by a
brilliant craftsman, Rawlings.
At
the end of the lower corridor wall was a carved plywood map of the world, on
which the adopted P & O liner – the *name escapes me – journeyed to the Far
East; we used to correspond with the crew.
It became a wartime troop ship and was, I believe, sunk off Africa in
1943. [*RMS Ceramic. The summer term
1938 issue of The Thorntonian reported that Captain H C Elford visited
the school on 30 June that year and gave a talk on his life at sea. Ed]
Natural
Science, in the lower forms, taken by Read, was a most enjoyable period, since
the last ten minutes of each class was devoted to his relating “wild life” days
of his youth, spent away from urban and parental control, such as making
gunpowder and sealing it in tin cans to explode in the local river to catch
stunned fish, which were wrapped and then cooked in the embers and hot stones
of a wood fire. His imagination, and
particularly ours, just ran riot on this Peter Pan-like journey, which,
incredibly, we were able to experience following the evacuation [to Chichester]
– a “full-board”, “public-school” life away from the strictures of home and
what they today call Health and Safety!
Houses,
which cut across the age barriers of Forms – I was in Wilberforce, colour
orange, as I remember – played a great
part in school life, with after-hours meetings for different interests: stamp collecting, photography, art,
etc. Plus dramatics (Shakespeare,
French plays), the choir, and also the orchestra.
Two
debates I particularly remember were “The National Need to Build Motor Road
similar to Autobahns” and “The Need for Re-armaments”. Both motions were heavily defeated. We had a British Union of Fascists – with
about three members – and they were
always trounced by the Conservative/Liberal and Labour parties.
The
gym lesson was a great period each week, under Bramble, with exciting antics on
the ropes, wall-bars and box [vaulting] horse, with mat work, diving over seven
or eight crouched/kneeling pupils and finishing with a front roll. Bramble always said that one day we would
look back and appreciate what we were learning then. I found this so in my Service days and today when I do my daily
exercises to keep trim!
My
two years at Chichester, as previously mentioned, were virtually complete
freedom from organised, stereotypical authority. The only master-arranged, extramural event was a 1939 Christmas
dance with Streatham High School for Girls, who were residing with the
Chichester High School for Girls and held it in their assembly hall. It was a fiasco, since we were ill-equipped
to deal with social graces or bold enough to take the lead without some form of
guidance and direction. I do not recall
any master or prefect being present!
The other occasion was choral singing during the 1940 spring term in the
local South Street cinema with [girls from] Streatham High, which I am certain
they organised.
The
School Certificate examinations were over, and the results were to be available
three or four weeks after the end of term.
Two of us made a morning visit on the appointed day. The school was deserted, but we happened to
see one of the masters, who took us into the office to see the results,
congratulated us on passing and wished us a good holiday. NO mention of future plans or opportunities!
Being
interested in art and not knowing how to set about the right approach for
entering a completely unexplored world to me, I decided to go to the fountain
head, ie, County Hall [London]. The
Blitz was over and the building was deserted, but I managed to find a uniformed
official, to whom I explained my presence.
He said: “It sounds to me like the Education Committee for London…They
happen to be sitting today… through those double doors.” It seemed like a vast chamber, with a long,
crescent-shaped table and about 20 occupants.
I suppose that, being wartime, they didn’t have much business on their
agenda, as they appeared genuinely delighted to see me! After I’d explained my position, advice
flowed from all directions, and I was urged to use my scholarship by taking the
RIBA Architectural Course at the School of Architecture (Regent Street
Polytechnic). I later discovered it was
a full-time diploma course over seven years, and a new world opened up. It was broken by emergency service, as it
was called, in the Indian Army – a university of life, never to be forgotten –
and then back to “long-sweat” Finals, receiving the RIBA Diploma in
Architecture.
Once
again, a new life opened up.
From Derek Yandell (1945-52): Air Training Corps
Squadron 1351: September 1947-July 1952. My choice of dates is fairly obvious: they represent the period during which I was
a member.
I had no desire of my
own to join, having no interest in aeroplanes and no interest for drill and
other after-school activities. However
, my main friend at HTS had been, and remained so for some years, a boy with
very strong ideas. He was keen to join,
and I meekly followed. My
near-contemporaries might remember Richard Illsley. We were together until our first term at King’s College, London,
when he changed courses.
My first discovery on
joining was an unexpected bonus: I
found that drill, taken by Mr Bramble on the playground, was during the last
period on Friday afternoons. This meant
missing an art lesson, and as I (like probably many others) was in awe of Mr
Dix, the art teacher, that was very good news.
I have been rather
puzzled by Bramble’s rôle in the ATC.
It appears that he was responsible for starting the Flight, as it was
originally known, and yet he gradually faded from the scene, apart from the
extra PT lessons included in the ATC programme. He never attended camp and, at some point, I took over the drill
instruction – in retrospect, much to my surprise. By that stage I was the senior NCO, probably as there were no
boys senior to me in the school who were also in the ATC. At that point Richard, who had persuaded me
to join, was a corporal.
I have a vague memory
of Richard and me winning a “signals” competition. I subsequently helped Mr Howell with signal instruction (and I
still know the Morse Code).
The first camp I attended
was at Manston, in Kent. We had quite a
large group there for the first week and a smaller group for a second week,
which included myself and Richard; both of us were corporals at the time. If I remember correctly, the senior NCO was
Keegan, but he stayed for only the first week; a rather charismatic sergeant
called Thompson was in charge for the other week. I found out, many years later, from another OT and ex-ATC member,
that Thompson had had a very successful career in the RAF.
All the other camps I
attended have somewhat blurred together.
Mr Williams was always in charge, assisted by Mr Read, the Chemistry
teacher, and Mr Wilson (History), who stayed only a short time at HTS. Wilson must have joined in September 1948
and left in July 1951; he’s not in either the 1948 or 1952 school
photograph. However, he carried on with
the ATC and turned up each Friday. He
was one of the nicest people I have known:
friendly, courteous and fair. We
became quite good friends, and I gathered that he was fairly unhappy at his new
school. However, I was delighted to
hear from another member at the [2007] reunion that he had met Wilson again at
camp and he was then in charge of the ATC group from Battersea Grammar School
(not the school he joined after leaving HTS).
There are several
photographs around, some possibly on the [Association] website. The one with a Lancaster bomber has myself
and Richard at either end. Also present
is Mr Owen, although I have no recollection of his being involved with the ATC.
Because of a trip to
Canada (perhaps more about that another time) I missed the last camp I should
have attended, in 1952.
Overall, the
experience was useful, and it introduced me to teaching, albeit of a somewhat
limited nature. As I later spent over
40 years teaching, perhaps there is a connection. It also gave me some function within the school and made me
better known.
The final irony was
that I failed the National Service medical.
As an indirect introduction
to the next item, here’s a “Cooperism” quoted by James Hiney (1941-4): “You will always remember
that ‘semel’ is the Latin for ‘once’ because Semolina is the pudding you will
only ever want once”.
From the Pages of The
Thorntonian
Autumn 1962:
VALETE
The retirement of Mr.
W. J. Cooper, who joined the staff in 1928, severs our last link with the old
school in Latchmere Road. Mr. Cooper
came to us from Rutlish School to become Classics Master, and later he became
responsible for the Advanced Course in Arts.
For many years he was Form Master of the Upper Sixth.
He is a man of many
interests. When he first joined the
School he helped with the music and taught the School Song when it was
introduced. During World War II, while
the School. was at Chichester, he ran the School garden and helped with the
billeting of the boys. He was also
editor of the School Magazine for twelve years.
In the years before
the war his excellent coaching in Fives resulted in the School’s winning the
Marchant Cup more frequently than any other school, and for many years he was
secretary of the Marchant Cup Committee.
A keen and very able tennis player, he has always taken part in the
annual match between the boys and the staff [he makes a brief
appearance, for example, in Alan Kurtz’s 1958 film. Ed]; his performance this year was as vigorous as
ever.
He has been a very
active and well-known figure in connection with the Inter-School Sixth Form
Society, which promotes closer contact between the Sixth Forms of the Grammar
schools in South West London.
We wish him a long and
very happy retirement in which to enjoy to the full the pleasures of gardening,
of following the progress of our leading tennis players and of seeing the best
soccer England can provide.
Mr. Cooper will, we
are pleased to say, still be amongst us as he will be continuing to teach at
Henry Thornton part-time.
Summer 1938:
MACAULAY
Zachary
Macaulay was born on the 2nd May, 1768.
His father was a minister and is mentioned in Boswell’s account of
Johnson’s “Tour of the Hebrides” in 1773.
Zachary was sent out to Jamaica at the age of sixteen to become
bookkeeper upon an estate of which he became manager. He was deeply impressed with the miseries of the slave population
and gave up his position in disgust, returning to England in 1792.
The
Sierra Leone Company had been founded in 1791 by Wilberforce, Henry Thornton
(who became chairman) and others to form a colony of liberated slaves. Henry Thornton heard of Macaulay and
obtained his appointment as second member of the Sierra Leone council. Macaulay sailed in 1793, and soon after
reaching the Colony became Governor.
The colonists were a rabble of ignorant freedmen and barbarous tribes
demoralized by the slave-trade.
Macaulay, with the help of a single colleague, had to be governor,
councillor, paymaster, judge and clerk, to preach sermons and celebrate
marriages. He set up schools and put
down a threatened insurrection.
His
health broke down, and he left the Colony in 1795, taking a passage to the West
Indies, in a slave ship, at some personal risk, to obtain first-hand
information about the horrors of the “middle passage”. His health improved and he returned to the
Colony, and in spite of many difficulties raised it to a tolerable state of
prosperity. He resigned his post in
1799 and, upon returning to England, was appointed secretary to the Company
with a salary of £500 a year. He held
this position until, in 1808, the Colony was transferred to the Crown.
In
1799 Macaulay married Miss Mills, whom he had first met at the house of Hannah More
at Cowslip Green; she was the daughter of a Quaker bookseller at Bristol. He lived first in Lambeth and then settled
in the High Street of Clapham. Here
Macaulay became deeply interested in the labours which were the main interest
of his life. He was editor of the
“Christian Observer”, the organ of the Clapham sect from 1802 to 1816. It was especially devoted to the abolition
of the British slave-trade, and afterwards to the destruction of the slave
trade abroad. Macaulay’s intimate
knowledge of the facts gave him special authority among the abolitionists, and
he worked with the most unremitting zeal.
[See also the item on the Clapham Sect in issue
no 2, May 2007. Ed]
He
co-operated in forming the “Anti-Slavery Society” in 1823, and wrote most of
the monthly reports issued by it. He
often sat up night after night imbibing blue-books and reports, and, though he
was neither a speaker nor a writer under his own name, he supplied the popular
leaders with facts and arguments. When
information was required, Wilberforce would say, “Let us look it out in
Macaulay.” He was bitterly attacked by
the opposite party, especially in the “John Bull”, and was made the subject of
calumnies which he never condescended to expose.
Macaulay’s
health and eyesight began to fail about 1894, and he had to give up active work
at the Anti-Slavery Society. He visited
France, where he was made honorary President of the French Society for the
Abolition of Slavery and contributed to its publications some papers upon Hayti
[sic] and the French colonies. He returned to England in the winter of 1836
and never after left his home, and scarcely his couch. He died on the 13th May, 1838, and was
buried in the now disused ground at Mecklenburg Square.
At
a meeting held in July, 1838, it was agreed to erect a memorial to him in
Westminster Abbey. A bust was
accordingly erected and an inscription written by (Sir) James Stephen. The inscription commemorates his share in
the abolition of slavery and the slave trade, and adds that “he meekly endured
the toil, the privation and the reproach, resigning to others the praise and
the reward”. For obvious reasons
another inscription was substituted in the Abbey. Macaulay left nine children, of whom the eldest, Thomas
Babington, Lord Macaulay, was the best
known.
Macaulay’s
services towards abolishing one of the great wrongs of his time can hardly be
over-praised, and few men have devoted themselves so entirely and unselfishly
to a cause. He found time to take an
active part in other benevolent movements of the day, and he was one of the
principal founders of London University; although strongly in favour of
religious education, he thought that the university should provide education
for all.
In
spite of a defective education, he had read much general literature, and was
acquainted not only with the English politicians of his day but with such
distinguished foreigners as Chateaubriand, Madam de Staël and Dumont. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society. His works were anonymous, as he thought the
publication of his name would be injurious rather than beneficial to his cause,
and consisted chiefly of papers issued by the societies to which he belonged.
J.
Hart-Smith
Where Are They Now?
Following
up Eric Wilson’s enquiry in the previous issue, Mike Overton (1945-50) reports
that Alan Jones now lives in Hertfordshire. Contact Ted Hayward if you’d like to have his full address and
telephone number. More generally, let Ted
know if you have any information also on the whereabouts of former staff
or their relatives.
Clapham
Common – Wartime Deep Shelters
Alyson
Wilson, of The Clapham Society, would like to hear from any OTs (or their friends/relatives)
who used these shelters (not the air-raid shelters) during or after WW2;
their memories may be included in a talk on the subject being given to Society members
in September. If you can help please
contact Alyson by 31 August: alysonwilson.sw4@virgin.net;
020 7622 6360; 22 Crescent Grove, London, SW4 7AH.
School
Captains
Issue
no7 will list them from 1929 onwards, as far as they can be identified from the
relevant sources, including the magazines and annual prizegiving programmes.
Appendices
As promised in issue no 4,
here’s a selection of photographs (with thanks to Jeff Green for producing the
hard copies being circulated to members without e-mail addresses). The other enclosure, apart from the reunion
notice mentioned on page 1, is from the Souvenir Programme for the Clapham
Exhibition held at the school on 31 March and 1 April 1939 (Ted Hayward has a
full copy). Further extracts are on the
website.
_____________________________________________________________________________
The Editor welcomes
contributions for future issues. Please
post or e-mail them to Ted Hayward, 31 Linfields, Little Chalfont, Amersham,
Bucks HP7 9QH; ted.hayward@btinternet.com
www.oldthorntoniansclapham.org.uk